Canon Selphy and Ubiquiti Unifi

I recently got a Canon Selphy photo printer. It’s a book-sized printer that outputs 6×4″ photo prints using a dye sublimation process. As I don’t print much this is ideal as there’s no ink to dry out, it uses little space, and the prints are comparable to ones I can get from general online photo printing places.

This all seems great but I had great difficulty getting it to work over Wifi on my Ubiquiti network, particularly using AirPrint.

After a lot of head scratching I came across some old forum posts that mentioned UAPSD (unscheduled automatic power save delivery). I don’t really know what that means, but sure enough there is a setting in the Wireless Networks section of Unifi and enabling this fixed all printer problems.

Beat Saber

This is my current go-to VR game, and is a lot of fun to play. It’s a lightsabre music mashup thing.

It can be particularly satisfying at times, and feels like you’re getting a good bit of exercise too. Meanwhile in the real world you’re just flailing your arms around like you’re being attacked by a bee.

The need for whitespace

I’m a big fan of vertical whitespace, and find it strange that more fuss is made of tabs vs spaces (which doesn’t really affect readability) than vertical spacing (which does).

Here’s a simple code example, randomly picked:

$max_width  = intval( get_option( 'thumbnail_size_w' ) );
$max_height = intval( get_option( 'thumbnail_size_h' ) );
// last chance thumbnail size defaults
if ( ! $max_width && ! $max_height ) {
  $max_width  = 128;
  $max_height = 96;
}

Compared to:

$max_width  = intval( get_option( 'thumbnail_size_w' ) );
$max_height = intval( get_option( 'thumbnail_size_h' ) );

// last chance thumbnail size defaults
if ( ! $max_width && ! $max_height ) {
  $max_width  = 128;
  $max_height = 96;
}

That single extra line makes such a difference when scanning code. Imagine trying to read a book with no paragraphs.

Adverbial adjunct

I know, right?

The internet takes you on wonderful journeys, and today I found out about adverbial adjuncts. My path there began by wondering about the overused and redundant ‘to be honest’ that is added to statements.

To be honest I always lie.

Unsure person

Similarly there is the popular (and probably American) ‘go ahead’, as in ‘I’m going to go ahead’. This is something that seems unnecessary, and almost a meta statement of intent.

I’m going to go ahead and do this thing

Indirect person

One of my least favourite, and not an adverbial adjunct itself, is ‘is there a reason’.

Is there a reason you did this thing?

Passive-aggressive person

The answer is almost always yes, there is a reason. There are probably many reasons. They may not be good reasons, but asking in this way seems like an indirect accusation:

Why did you do this dumb thing?

Aggressive person

I’ve probably used this many times myself and I’m certainly going to try using alternatives.